Jens Stoltenberg has been asked to extend his tenure as Nato’s secretary general for a further year until October 2024 after members of the western military alliance failed to agree on a replacement before next week’s summit in Vilnius.
It is the third time the former Norwegian prime minister’s term has been extended, although earlier this year it was thought he would finally step aside after more than eight years at the head of the 31-country alliance.
Stoltenberg, 64, tweeted he was “honoured” by the Nato members’ decision, and said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine meant that “in a dangerous world, our alliance is more important than ever”.
In March, in an interview with the Guardian, Stoltenberg said he was ready to step aside from a job he first took in October 2014. “I’ve made it clear that my tenure ends this fall,” he said and predicted that member states would have no difficulty in finding a successor.
Nato chiefs are chosen by consensus among members, with the job traditionally reserved for a European, while its chief military commander, the supreme allied commander Europe, is an American.
Several alliance members had wanted a woman to succeed Stoltenberg, with Joe Biden, the US president, at one point keen on supporting the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen. But Frederiksen denied she wanted the job after a meeting with Biden at the White House last month.
There was also concern among some alliance members that Frederiksen would be the third consecutive Nato chief from a Nordic country after Stoltenberg and another Dane, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Denmark is also one of the countries in Nato with a lower military budget, at 1.38% of GDP, well below the alliance guideline of 2%.
Ben Wallace, the UK’s long-serving defence secretary, had declared himself a candidate, hoping to become the fourth Briton to take on the job. But France was among those sceptical, and his failed candidacy has prompted speculation Wallace may be moved from his post in a summer reshuffle.
Others whose names were aired included Kaja Kallas, the prime minister of Estonia, who has been an outspoken critic of the Russian invasion, but she won re-election as recently as March, making it unlikely she is willing to resign.
After it was announced, Biden welcomed the decision to retain Stoltenberg. In a statement released by the White House, thepresident praised his “steady leadership, experience, and judgment”, saying it had “brought our alliance through the most significant challenges in European security since the second world war”. The Nato alliance was “stronger, more united and purposeful than it has ever been”, he added.
The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, also welcomed the appointment, saying that under Stoltenberg’s leadership “Nato has evolved to meet new threats, continued to protect our people and has been steadfast in support of Ukraine”. Sunak said he was “looking forward to continuing that work together”.
Stoltenberg was generally considered a safe pair of hands during Donald Trump’s tenure at the White House, when it was even questioned whether the alliance founded in 1949 would survive, and again after Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The key immediate issue is to maintain unity given the war is likely to drag on as Ukraine’s counteroffensive makes only slow progress, and to decide how firm a security guarantee to give Kyiv whenever the conflict ends.
Last month, Ukraine’s president, Volodymr Zelenskiy, said there would be “no point” in him attending as a guest at the impending Nato summit in the Lithuanian capital if Kyiv was not given a clear signal that it could join after the war ended.
Additional reporting by Martin Belam
